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Continuing with our exploration of the Polish numerals. Today, we’re looking at numbers 11 to 20.

Here is how to spell them:

The most important thing to remember is that the Polish ‘teens’ always end in ‘-naście.‘

Eleven to thirteen and seventeen/eighteen are created by adding –naście to either one, two, three, seven or eight. So from jeden we get jedenaście. Dwa becomes dwanaście and trzy becomes trzynaście. Siedem gives us siedemnaście and osiem – osiemnaście.

The remaining numerals up to and including nineteen are created in the same way, but the resulting word has one or two letters modified.

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Yes, you read that right. There’s a cat in Poland that works as a nurse. Well, almost.

It’s not often that you see a completely unpronounceable Polish city trending on Facebook. Yet that’s what I noticed yesterday: Bydgoszcz (told ya), was – and in fact still is – trending on Facebook. Why?

Polish TV station TVN Meteo posted a short film about a black cat called Rademenes from an animal shelter in Bydgoszcz. The cat, according to Lucyna Kuziel–Zawalich, a local vet who saved the animal, lives in the shelter, nearly lost his live last year, and now ‘looks after’ other animals there.

Which basically means cuddling with poorly dogs and putting his paws on other cats. Awwww. And that’s enough for kitten-obsessed social media to make the story trend worldwide.

But the real story for me here is the story of Lucyna, who refused to put the sick cat down when it was admitted last September, aged just two months, with a serious respiratory illness. She looked after the cat, and – against all odds (the cat was losing his fur, had to be isolated) – kept him alive. And that’s when the cat started displaying what she calls ‘a strange behaviour’. Maybe he’s just thankful.

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The recent success of Paweł Pawlikowski’s Ida at the Oscars made me revisit some of Poland’s great filmmakers again.

And by pure accident I came across this – an 8 minute video, depicting the history of Poland through animation, created by Tomasz Bagiński, a BAFTA-winning Polish illustrator, animator and filmmaker, who was also nominated for an Oscar.

In 2010 Bagiński was commissioned to create a short animated movie for the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai.

In 8 minutes and 30 seconds we experience twelve centuries of Polish history from the early settlements to the most recent events with Poland as part of the European Union.

So if you’ve never studied Polish history, here it is – in an 8-minute, animated nutshell:

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Numbers are the most basic words you can learn and they prove hugely useful particularly when you travel to Poland.

The following table should help you understand them when you notice them written down:

And here is how to pronounce them:

What’s important to remember is the fact these are the Polish numerals. Not nouns. In other words, you can use them to say ‘one ticket’ or ‘3 beers’. But in most cases the nouns used to describe the number itself are slightly different.

There are not that many surprises there, the entire list – maybe just with a couple of exceptions – is what you would normally find in each decent guide to Poland.

I’m not exactly sure how the list was compiled (I suspect algorithmically, based on the ratings), but it’s still a great overview of what people visit in Poland – from the well-known places like Auschwitz or Malbork Castle, to less-known gems like Galicia Jewish Museum or Polish Aviation Museum.

Some usual suspects are missing though and some less traditional museums have also been skipped, but that’s why you have me to bring you the rest, no?